Back pain does NOT have to be a part of getting old. And the vast majority of people don’t have to manage pain the rest of their lives.

I’ve worked with people in El Paso suffering from back pain for over 20 years and seen full recoveries despite patients having years (even DECADES) of constant back problems. Many have even had failed back surgeries!

Surgery is not the only option for people that have suffered for years with back pain. Many people with back problems have spent lots of time and money trying to find relief, and when surgeons are ready to do what they do best it’s easy to believe that surgery will fix the back problem once and for all.

But sadly, many people are disappointed to find out later that their back problem has come back. Sometimes the exact same pain, other times it may be in a different location on the back.

The reason for this is that the root muscle imbalances have likely never been treated. It’s not something that surgeons would know about. Even the majority of physical therapists don’t know about diagnosing and treating root muscle imbalances because they specialize in helping people recover from surgery.

Nearly every case of chronic back pain (even if its been there for decades), has a muscle imbalance as the root cause of the problem. And it’s likely that the reason the pain has been there so long is because the treatments that have been done never focused on fixing the root problem.

This is one of the first things a physical therapist or sometimes doctor will recommend to you. And it might feel good at first, but most learn within 1-2 weeks that stretching only relieves back for a short time. For some people it does absolutely nothing and even makes it worse!

The root muscle imbalance causing your back pain nearly always needs to be addressed with strengthening the right muscle group.

Stretching is known in the medical research to cause muscle weakening in the long-term. It’s best to only do light stretching if it brings you relief and quit it immediately if you feel worse.

Over the years, I’ve worked with patients who have overcome back pain in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, becoming far more mobile and being able to live an active, pain-free life.

Your age might give you a higher chance of aches and pains, but that does not mean that you have to accept back pain in your later years.

Think of back pain as a result of more time living with root muscle imbalances instead of years of injuries piling up. That is the mindset we teach all our patients because you have control over your root muscle imbalances, but not over your age. So focus on what you can change.

This simply isn’t true - and I appreciate how frustrating it can be when someone tells you that the only way to relieve back pain is by taking powerful prescription drugs.

A lot of patients come to me because they are desperate for a life without reliance on pills or injections and they’ve heard success stories from friends and family members who’ve achieved natural pain relief and improved their mobility in their back.

With a variety of drug-free treatment options including massage, stretches, exercises, dry needling, orthotics, and simple lifestyle improvements, back pain is often drastically reduced, if not completely eliminated.

Surgery can help temporarily gain stability to un-pinch a nerve. It may provide relief for some, but there are also plenty of patients that say they had no change or are EVEN worse off now than before having surgery.

Solving back pain for the long term takes addressing the root muscle imbalance. And surgery does not make the weakest muscles stronger. Nor does it teach you to move in a way that keeps you from worsening the muscle imbalance.

In fact, it makes your muscles weaker overall. If you do physical therapy afterward, you’ll be guided on general exercise to get back on your feet again. But treating the root imbalances is just not something that surgeons or physical therapists that help people after surgery are knowledgeable about.